Movies Watched -- The Ipcress File (1965)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

107 minute running time so it could have lost ten minutes or so … this is an example of a movie that I enjoyed, it’s skillfully made (Otto Heller on camera) and the story isn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good enough to recommend (getting my coveted green-go rating) … lots of exposition which always spoils things for me. Harry Saltzman liked Michael Caine for some reason, maybe the Cockney accent helped. My favorite Michael Caine movie is Hannah and Her Sisters: “I have my answer!”

You have seen everything? (at groin height after tucking gun in waistband). “I’m not hungry.”

Earliest Movies Dropped from the Original Edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Added on by C. Maoxian.

The terribly titled book, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, was first published in 2003. I have the most recent edition of the book (2021) and was interested to see which of the early movies were dropped to make room for recent additions, and here are the earliest 25:

  1. Intolerance (1916)

  2. Way Down East (1920)

  3. Seven Chances (1925)

  4. The Jazz Singer (1927)

  5. Napoleon (1927)

  6. The Kid Brother (1927)

  7. Le Million (1931)

  8. La Chien (1931)

  9. Boudu Sauvé Des Eaux (1932)

  10. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

  11. Me and My Gal (1932)

  12. The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)

  13. Sons of the Desert (1933)

  14. Judge Priest (1934)

  15. Sabotage (1936)

  16. Things to Come (1936)

  17. Le Roman D’un Triechur (1936)

  18. Babes in Arms (1939)

  19. Le Jour Se Leve (1939)

  20. Gunga Din (1939)

  21. Ninotchka (1939)

  22. Wuthering Heights (1939)

  23. Dance Girl Dance (1940)

  24. Sergeant York (1941)

  25. I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

Movies Watched -- The Chinese Bungalow (1940)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

72 minute running time … chop suey font and gibberish “Malayan Chinese” being spoken … white guy (Paul Lukas) playing the Chinese guy … this wasn’t super terrible or over-the-top racist … millionaire Sing isn’t really a bad guy other than sending over the occasional siamese cat with poisoned claws and his bored wife was two-timing him after all, as her sister was quick to point out … I liked the sisterly jealousy angle, Cherry Blossom versus Heart of Jade.

Marriage is complete possession and we do not tolerate thieves

Movies Watched -- Paterson (2016)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

118 minute running time so at least 30 minutes too long … I hated this and am more convinced than ever that Jim Jarmusch only made one good movie (Dead Man) … this is the story of the funny-looking guy from Girls who now drives a city bus in Paterson, NJ. He writes excruciatingly bad poetry and has a beautiful but kooky Indian (subcontinent, not Injun) girlfriend. They have no kids of course, but keep a nasty English bulldog instead.

It’s just such pretentious, precious, faux artsy bullshit, who can stand movies like this? Boo, Jim Jarmusch and your stupid hair.

Headed to Nashville

Among the One Thousand Essential Films

Added on by C. Maoxian.

These lists are taken from the 2019 edition of The New York Times Book of Movies: The Essential 1,000 Films to See. Heavy on Hitchcock, I see.

Crime/Mystery/Suspense:

  1. Little Caesar (1931)

  2. M (1931)

  3. The Public Enemy (1931)

  4. The Thirty-nine Steps (1935)

  5. Fury (1936)

  6. They Won’t Forget (1937)

  7. You Only Live Once (1937)

  8. The Lady Vanishes (1938)

  9. Rebecca (1940)

  10. High Sierra (1941)

  11. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

  12. Suspicion (1941)

  13. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

  14. Laura (1944)

  15. Detour (1945)

  16. Spellbound (1945)

  17. The Big Sleep (1946)

  18. The Killers (1946)

  19. Notorious (1946)

  20. The Spiral Staircase (1946)

  21. Crossfire (1947)

  22. The Fugitive (1947)

  23. Odd Man Out (1947)

  24. Out of the Past (1947)

  25. The Big Clock (1948)

  26. Force of Evil (1948)

  27. They Live By Night (1949)

  28. White Heat (1949)

  29. The Third Man (1950)

  30. Strangers on a Train (1951)

  31. The Big Heat (1953)

  32. Dial M for Murder (1954)

  33. Rear Window (1954)

  34. Bob le Flambeur (1955)

  35. Diabolique (1955)

  36. To Catch a Thief (1955)

  37. The Wages of Fear (1955)

  38. Rififi (1956)

  39. I Want To Live! (1958)

  40. Touch of Evil (1958)

  41. Vertigo (1958)

  42. Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

  43. North By Northwest (1959)

  44. The Big Deal on Madonna Street (1960)

  45. Pigs and Battleships (1961)

  46. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

  47. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

  48. High and Low (1963)

  49. Topkapi (1964)

  50. The Ipcress File (1965)

  51. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

  52. In Cold Blood (1967)

  53. Point Blank (1967)

  54. The Bride Wore Black (1968)

  55. Bullitt (1968)

  56. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

  57. La Femme Infidele (1969)

  58. Topaz (1969)

  59. Le Boucher (1970)

  60. This Man Must Die (1970)

  61. Dirty Harry (1971)

  62. The French Connection (1971)

  63. Get Carter (1971)

  64. Klute (1971)

  65. Play Misty for Me (1971)

  66. Shaft (1971)

  67. Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)

  68. Frenzy (1972)

  69. The Godfather (1972)

  70. Straw Dogs (1972)

  71. Badlands (1973)

  72. The Long Goodbye (1973)

  73. Mean Streets (1973)

  74. Serpico (1973)

  75. Chinatown (1974)

  76. The Godfather, Part II (1974)

  77. The Parallax View (1974)

  78. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

  79. Night Moves (1975)

  80. Three Days of the Condor (1975)

  81. The Warriors (1979)

  82. Dressed to Kill (1980)

  83. Diva (1982)

  84. The Verdict (1982)

  85. L’Argent (1983)

  86. Prizzi’s Honor (1985)

  87. Blue Velvet (1986)

  88. Fatal Attraction (1987)

  89. RoboCop (1987)

  90. Bull Durham (1988)

  91. Married to the Mob (1988)

  92. Black Rain (1989)

  93. Dead Calm (1989)

  94. Goodfellas (1990)

  95. The Grifters (1990)

  96. Reversal of Fortune (1990)

  97. A Brighter Summer Day (1991)

  98. Point Break (1991)

  99. The Killer (1991)

  100. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

  101. One False Move (1992)

  102. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

  103. Pulp Fiction (1994)

  104. Fargo (1996)

  105. Lone Star (1996)

  106. Donnie Brasco (1997)

  107. L.A. Confidential (1997)

  108. Face/Off (1997)

  109. Out of Sight (1998)

  110. Infernal Affairs (2003)

  111. Collateral (2004)

  112. L’Enfant (2006)

  113. Election (2007)

  114. Zodiac (2007)

Science Fiction:

  1. Metropolis (1927)

  2. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

  3. The Fly (1958)

  4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

  5. Blade Runner (1982)

  6. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

  7. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan )1982)

  8. Aliens (1986)

  9. Beetlejuice (1988)

Movies Watched -- Ghost Dog (1999)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

115 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long… since I loved Dead Man so much I’ve gone on a Jim Jarmusch kick, but I wasn’t thrilled with Ghost Dog. I guess I didn’t “get it” … the scenes with the bumbling, idiotic Mafiosi were funny, but… Jonathan Rosenbaum liked it a lot.

Don’t give away the ending…

My Experience Buying Legal Weed

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Last week a legal pot shop opened near where I live, the first of its kind in the area, so I visited it yesterday and bought some pot, legally.

Outside the front door stood a large young bald man who asked me for identification. This large old bald man gave him my driver’s license which he duly scanned with an iPad, so now I’m included in some pot smoker’s database kept by the state, even though I don’t smoke pot.

You could smell pot outside the store, and the young bald door checker was certainly high. There is a second set of opaque glass doors that you have to pass through to reach the inside, which gives you the feeling that you’re doing something illicit. There was an older security man standing inside against a wall; he gave me a hard look but didn’t say anything

This shop is brand new and completely unadorned, just a plain floor and walls with glass cases holding the merchandise. I have no idea what any of the new stuff is (various “pens” and other things); I was there to buy flower.

A friendly young man (totally stoned) came over and asked me what I was looking for and I said I wanted the lowest THC flower they had in stock. I explained that I hadn’t smoked weed for 30 (!) years and was not prepared for the various nuclear varieties that have been developed during that time. (Louis CK has a great bit about this which I’d find and link to but I can’t be bothered).

He said that the lowest THC flower they had in stock was “Cinderella 99 HV” which is grown by High Falls Canna located in High Falls, NY (Ulster county). All the products sold in New York state pot shops must be produced in New York state, which is a good thing I suppose (vertical integration of sorts).

As you can see from the packaging above, it’s an eighth of an ounce (3.5g) with 15.33% THC (153.3mg of THC per gram) and 1.3% CBD. I don’t know what the 99 HV part of the name means. HV means “Hudson Valley,” maybe? 99 is the 99th variation on the strain? [Update: friendly potheads have written in to inform me that the strain is named Cinderella 99, that is the full name, so “HV” must stand for Hudson Valley … this is sun-grown weed.]

It cost $50 plus 9% state excise tax ($4.50) and 4% local excise tax ($2), and then they rounded it up to $57 total since they didn’t have any coin change, which I didn’t notice at the time. This is a cash-only operation. The cashier was also very friendly and very stoned. Everyone I encountered was high as a kite except for, I assume, the security man who gave me a hard look.

Here is the back of the package below which instructs one to enjoy the product in your favorite smoking device. This made me laugh and I wasn’t even stoned yet.

I walked out of the shop and went on my merry way. The bag has a zip lock seal within, after tearing off the top, and even before you open it, you are hit with that strong pot smell which some people find unpleasant, but I can tolerate it. This is what a bud looks like:

Cinderella 99 HV

I weighed the contents on a kitchen scale which rounded up to 4 grams, so there was definitely 3.5 grams of flower within. My state-sanctioned dealer did not shortchange me.

My “favorite smoking device” is what we called a “bat” thirty years ago, also known as a one-hitter. This is the one I use:

I had one puff of Cinderella 99 HV using this device and regret to say that I didn’t keep track of the amount of time that elapsed before I was hit with the sensation of being stoned, but I can say that it was a strong sensation when it arrived and was probably within three to five minutes. I felt flush and had some odd physical sensations that weren’t entirely pleasant, but they passed quickly. Then I was high, which means I was having unusual thoughts and bizarre ideas, which I enjoyed. I also experienced time distortion, but it wasn’t too bad.

I watched some of the old Hitchcock movie, The Trouble With Harry, and was amused by all the bawdiness, the constant sexual double entendres … Hitchcock really was a dirty-minded old bastard (and great filmmaker).

I also had one deep insight that I remember (I had many other deep thoughts which I can’t remember), which is that pot smoking ideally is a shared experience, not something you do alone. Not that there’s anything wrong with being alone with your own stoned thoughts, but ideally you are sharing them with another person (or people) who are similarly stoned. This seemed deep at the time at least. :-)

The high was pretty intense for me and there’s no way that I would smoke pot regularly, or even irregularly. It will take me many, many years to finish this 3.5g of flower, which cost $57 including tax.